An important trend in washing and bleaching practices in household and industry has been the move towards lower wash and bleaching temperatures, i.e. below 60.degree. C. In turn, this trend towards lower temperature bleaching has necessitated improvement in the bleaching performance of detergent compositions, particularly with respect to the stain removal of bleachable stains and soilings, such as tea, wine, coffee, blackberry juice etc., the so-called dingy soils and hydrophobic stains like seafood dressing and tomato sauce/olive oil. Organic peroxyacids as a class are quite effective bleaches and the use of organic peroxyacid compounds as the bleach system in detergent compositions has been proposed in the art, sea for example GB-A-1,456,591 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,100,095.
A recent trend in clothing is the wearing and the appreciation by consumers of coloured fabrics. However, washing of these fabrics creates problems when they are stained. These stained fabrics may be washed with the conventional peroxyacids to remove the stains, but this will result in the fabrics losing colour. On the other hand, coloured fabrics can be washed with detergent compositions without bleach, but this will result in poor stain removal after washing.
These problems are more apparent when the fabrics are soiled with hydrophobic stains. Hydrophobic stains are frequently encountered and are often regarded as difficult to remove, e.g. collar and cuff stains, sweat and sebum. A hydrophobic peroxyacid bleach is therefore highly desirable in order to counteract these types of stains. One particular problem with hydrophobic peroxyacids, however, is the dye damage they can cause on coloured fabrics, especially nylon, acetate and tri-acetate fabrics.
Consequently, a problem exists in washing of stained coloured fabrics, especially when hydrophobically stained, without the fabrics losing colour.
EP-A-267165 discloses peroxy acids which incorporate sulphone groups which are relatively polar and add hydrophilic character to the compounds which incorporate them. This document states (page 3 lines 3 to 5) that some sulphone peroxycarboxylic acids exhibit a low level of damage to dyes in coloured articles. Separately in this document it is stated that "the tendency to cause dye damage will vary but will usually be reduced by the presence of one or more sulphone groups". A variety of peroxycarboxylic acids are disclosed in this prior document, including some norbornyl compounds.